These Tattoo Tights Are Apparently Crazy Popular In Japan

Tattoo-print shirts are old news, no matter how much we love them on Stefon. But tattoo-print tights are apparently crazy popular in Japan, and some of them have a distinctly fashion-oriented point of view.

For example UNUS, an online shop specializing in Japanese legware, is known for selling an impressive array of tights with bold graphic prints that often make it look like the wearer has some particularly impressive leg tattoos. Now they’re getting into the game themselves and have produced a line of their own legware in collaboration with an Osaka-based pop artist named Buggy who has painted for Stella McCartney and is best known for a series of portraits of fashion world luminaries with bloody noses.

The first collection of UNUS and Buggy, called “LEG x POP ART,” includes a series of tights with portraits of fashion people like John Galliano, Karl Lagerfeld, and even Kate Moss with a mustache, printed on them to look like pretty well-done tattoos. But they’re not tattoos, they’re tights, which is a pretty good thing because while it would certainly be a great conversation starter, I don’t see myself ever getting a giant portrait of Karl Lagerfeld tattooed on my leg.

Another, slightly more subtle, pair looks like the wearer’s leg was tattooed with scissors and pen nibs, and those could actually be mistaken for real tattoos if a viewer didn’t get close enough to count the threads of the nylon.

My first reaction is that they are awesome!! But I think the reality might end up looking like I took a marker pen to my own legs… hmmm…

Charmless

I wear them all the time because I feel uncomfortable being bare-legged at work and I hate regular nude pantyhose. You can get them for under $5 a pair on eBay. People always think they’re real tattoos and I had a 70-something woman stop me in the grocery store to tell me how pretty she thought the stars on my legs are.

I wear them all the time because I feel uncomfortable being
bare-legged at work and I hate regular nude pantyhose. You can get them
for under $5 a pair on eBay. People always think they’re real tattoos
and I had a 70-something woman stop me in the grocery store to tell me
how pretty she thought the stars on my legs are.